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December 05, 2012

KC Pet Project update -- November 2012

As regular followers of this blog know, in January, 2012, an organization that I am very proud to be a part of took over the operations of the Kansas City, MO Animal Shelter. The city decided several years ago that it should get out of the "sheltering" business, and instead to contract the management of the shelter to outside organizations.

After 2 years with a previous vendor, they parted ways and set up a new RFP -- to which the KC Pet Project was chosen to operate the shelter. We operate the shelter as an open-admission shelter for the city of Kansas City, MO, with an annual intake of about 8,000 animals.

Over the past several years, the shelter save rate has improved -- from 38% in 2007 to 63% in 2010. In 2011, 68% of the animals were saved, but mostly because the city quit impounding as many animals during the interim period of management.

Since January, KC Pet Project has been working hard to increase life-saving and the quality of care for animals in the shelter and I've been posting occassional updates along the way.

While we take in a host of animals at the shelter; pigs, birds, reptiles, goats, chickens, oppossums, racoons, zebras (jk), etc, the numbers below only reflect our dog and cat numbers only. So here are the numbers for the month of November:

Intake -- 517 -- 405 dogs, 112 cats

Adoptions: 294 -- 218 dogs, 76 cats

Returned to owner: 70 -- all dogs

Transferred to other shelters/rescue groups: 58 -- 42 dogs, 16 cats

Euthanized: 53 -- 40 dogs, 13 cats

Save Rate: 94.3% (for both dogs and cats)

This is the 5th consecutive month that we have had a save rate of more than 90%.

Total positive outcomes for the year (so far): 5,059 -- which is 1,350 more than in the same 11 months a year ago.

Save rate on the year: 84.3% (and rising)

It's been a tremendous year thus far -- and I'm eternally grateful for our outstanding staff for living this every day and for the 15 animals they save every single day. I'm also grateful for our outstanding volunteers (including several professional photographers) and rescue partners who are helping make it all possible -- especially given that we're now serving 2 different locations. It's an incredible group of dedicated and talented individuals we work with.

I'll have a year end recap, as well as a final recap of our Zona Rosa location after the first of the year....

Comments

Good job on the increased adoptions. I have a few questions on the information you've presented. Do you have data on the healthy and treatable versus the untreatable pets that were euthanized? What does "Clinic Out" mean?

Also, how much did the Zona Rosa location increase the number of pets that KCPP is able to hold in its program at any given time? With the success of the Zona Rosa location in the last three weeks, are you considering making it a permanent adoption center, or are there obstacles to doing that? Thanks!

At present, we don't have the information broken out between treatable and untreatable. We're hoping to have more details in 2013.

I believe that "clinic out" animals are animals that are transferred to other vet clinics and then don't come back. I know we have one veterinarian that helps us that has adopted out several animals from her clinic while still in treatment and I think these are them.

We have space for about 40 animals at the Zona Rosa location. We would absolutely love to make this a permanent adoption location but there are barriers to doing this. One of the biggest barriers is financial -- we got a great deal on the space since it was sitting empty prior to us taking it over and they wanted it filled for the holidays. As a not-for-profit they gave us a very discounted rate on the space. Even at the discounted rate, it is expensive for us to have to staff/transport, etc. However, we are looking for options to extend this, either in the current location or elsewhere and for revenue streams to help pay for it.

Most of the racoons and opposums come to us because they have distemper (there would be no other reason animal control would pick them up) and are euthanized.

Pigs are adopted out (mostly we just get the small pet pigs, occassionally we'll get a farm pig that we send to one of the farms we work with (our llamas go there too). Goats get adopted pretty quickly usually.

The birds generally go to rescue (if they're the pet kind) -- we also have a wildlife rehab facility in town that often takes an owl/hawk/eagle that we sometimes get that is injured (we're open later than the wildlife rehab facility. Reptiles go to rescue, except the crocodile we got went to the zoo. Kansas City allows urban farming, so the chickens and chicks are usually adopted fairly quickly. Roosters are a lot more difficult although we tend to place a lot of them too. Rats go directly to a Petco we partner with and the stray ferets went to rescue also. Thus far we've save more than 250 "others" this year in addition to the dogs and cats. We're proud of the work we do in this area too -- and even have a goat on the cover of our year-end mailer.

Brent, I hope you understand that I am not making this comment just to disagree with ac policies, but that I'd like people to actually have a better understanding of diseases in wildlife, and know that there are other reasons that are more valid for ac to use concerning why they are 'disposing' of certain types of animals.

It is almost unheard of for opposums to get distemper (or rabies) and I doubt that ac could, let alone would, test in the field to confirm distemper. If they are picking up opossums that are out in the daytime, wandering around, it is much (much) more likely that they are suffering from the opposum equivalent of Alzheimer's disease. Admittedly, an opposum with dementia could attract the attention of humans who might be silly enough to bother it and get bitten, so while it could be considered the better choice to catch and kill them, it would be better to know that they aren't 'sick' and 'contagious' animals. Of course, any bite by any animal could get infected (and be quite painful), so that is the real reason why interactions between wildlife and humans usually result in the animal being removed or killed.

Raccoons can be infected with distemper or rabies, and would be wandering in the day with nasal and/or eye discharge, and other symptoms, and so they are almost always killed, according to state law, even though many times the animals aren't sick at all. Raccoons are much more aggressive (and while they don't have as many teeth as opposums do), and can do a lot more damage when they bite. It is because of the possibility for rabies transmission that raccons are killed (either before or after they bite a human), not because of the distemper problem, as humans, while capable of being infected, almost never suffer any effects from it. While raccoons can be infected by feline distemper it generally doesn't have as great an effect, while canine distemper can kill them, and either can reinfect cats or dogs, so from that standpoint it wouldn't be sensible to leave them in the wild, so they are killed to prevent this.

Anyone who works in a job where they may be bitten by a raccoon should be vaccinated against rabies, but just like dogs and cats, raccoons that are successfully vaccinated against rabies don't get it and don't infect humans even if they bite them.

Kate, it's clear that you know more about the veterinary side than I do, I've seen more than a handful of these animals while they've been at the shelter and I've never questioned that any of them were suffering and needed to be euthanized...